Turning Back The Pendulum
by Autumn's Effervescence
Summary: Written for the Bleach Romances Contest. What if Hirako had been conscious after the Hollowfication attack during the Pendulum Arc? A chance at what could've emerged. Shinji POV. Onesided ShinjixUrahara


Newest Contest pairing: Kisuke Urahara x Shinji Hirako

This is gonna be difficult. D:

Well... Hopefully, this won't be too terrible....

Disclaimer: I'm not Kubo in any way. I have proof! Look at my drawings and cringe in disgust at the utter horribleness! XD

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oxoxoxo Turn Back the Pendulum oxoxoxo

Darkness waned, tantilizingly close; tendrils of the substance neared his eyes, almost close enough to taint the whiteness that bubbled within.

It was infuriating.

The whiteness, the utter mayhem, within, frothed and bubbled just below the surface - But his eyes were blank, the eyes of a dead and unseeing man.

_If only..._ The words bubbled to the surface, surprising in their utter sincerity in the chaos. _If only... These last hundred years..._

A streak of fairly dull blonde flashed before his eyes_ - Who is it? - _Startling gray eyes peered down at him, with a seriousness that few could imitate.

The hard wooden floor chafed against his clothing - clothing stained a crimson red that burned into his skin. Once, _once,_ his haori had been as white as the chaos that thrashed within.

What was the cost of physical pain? And the cost of his mentality? In the sake of such madness, he'd desert both... wouldn't he?

"'Hollowfication' is one of the 'solutions' I came up with when researching how to strengthen souls." A voice, almost painful in its cracked familiarity, intruded on his senses.

...Kisuke Urahara. The lunatic. The utter maniac. The complete enigima. The recent addition to the ranks of the Gotei Thirteen Captains, promoted and given the position of 12th Division's Captain.

Shinji and the others had been infected with Hollowification - And the man had brought them back to his labatory to cure them. Clearly, insane. Why contaminate such a lab? Was the man blind to the possible recuperssions?

Yes, he couldn't move, though he was indeed conscious. Yes, he would've died if it wasn't for Urahara. But still... The man was a fool.

"In the process, I created a substance that will instantaneously break down the boundaries between Shinigami and Hollow." The voice continued as the speaker moved, flitting this way and that in a confusing disoriented mess that Shinji had no desire to solve.

But the man was a lunatic, that much he was able to testify to. Not only had he intruded on the practical massacre of Aizen - the name left a bitter feeling on his tongue - but had, from the sounds of it, built a device that was the exact reason why he donned a mask that lingered with the odor of Hollow.

"With this, I can save Hirako and the others." Urahara continued, hardly pausing in his explanation. Obviously, the man was well-versed in the dilemnas of hesitation. "It's called the 'Hougyoku.'"

oxoxoxo

Light intruded on his senses - almost blinding it's ferocity - forcing acknowledgement from deep within, somewhere a cord of reasonance struck.

And then, everything was consumed in darkness.

oxoxoox

Shafts of light cut through the darkness of the room - oddly inviting with the abrupt warmth and light.

Moving was still out of his grasp - He remained slumped against the wall, a broken mess.

Still... Though he was still physically handicapped - the searing pain had faded away, so that he could almost say that he was fine, in mentality, at least.

"...Urahara..." A new, foreign voice cut across his senses - deep and masculine, almost majestic with it's authority.

His eyes turned fractionally - hidden in the shadows of the mask. The figure was blurred in his vision - hardly visible in the dim light. Quickly giving up on the cause, he focused instead on the object that remained on him, obscuring his facial features with impressive persistance.

The mask - once so foreign to him, like some object of taintment... Now, it was on his features like a second skin - Though not natural by any means, it felt as if there was some sense of belonging of that hideous porcelian mask on his person.

"...I'm sorry, Tessai." It was Urahara again - but his voice was different, no longer authoriative, but mellow now, almost... sad? "It didn't work."

Silence reigned before...

"I need... to get a breath of fresh air." Urahara's footsteps, slow and awkward in defeat, trudged towards what was assumed to be the door. Shinji could feel sympathy for the man well up within him now that the chaos had faded away - Even so, considering that it was this man that had calmed the frothing madness, unconsciously, it seemed, since Shinji couldn't speak out to prove the man wrong. His physical injuries had yet to be attended to.

A loud _thack_ echoed across the room - Two wooden sticks collided with each other somewhere.

"12th Division Captain Urahara Kisuke!" A sharp voice grated harshly against Shinji's ears as soon as the door had opened. Twin footsteps rang against the hard wooden floor. "Kido Corps Captain Tsukabishi Tessai! Central Room 46 has issued a warrant for your arrest!"

"Wha-?"

Shinji felt his own eyes widen marginally at the unexpected announcement. As light streamed in from outside, his eyes could make out Urahara's distinguished form, marred by the figures that stood next to him, holding wooden staffs out warningly to the man.

"Please come with us." The words were anything but a request - Shinji was too well-versed in the words used by authority figures - It was a command.

oxoxoxo

Silence.

It was infuriating - almost as agonizing as the white chaotic Hollow that had torn his world asunder. He had no way to contact the outer world, except with the mere presence of his still, unmoving body.

He might as well as have been a corpse, for all the good that he'd ever do.

In the utter stillness, as no one other that could animatedly move was around - The silence grated on his nerves, promising him that things would never be the same, contorted and twisted as they had become in this mad charade of evil.

...Still, in that moment of utter stillness and bitterness, Shinji could feel his thoughts turn, unexpectedly, to Kisuke Urahara - the one who had created the Hogyoku. The man was insane, yes. But brilliant, unquestionably. If anyone was to be given any semblence of hope in this utter despair... It would be that man.

oxoxoxo

Wind. It was the only substance he could feel - whipping and roaring at his ears, sending little darts of pain to his skin.

He was moving at unparalled speed - with the other semi-corpses that could all be, he mused thoughtfully, awake inside, and yet physically inequipped.

Someone was carrying them. A fairly thin, dark-skinned being, wrapped up in bandages to conceal the person's identity, it seems.

Still, the being was fast - almost etherically so. Though Shunpo was being used occasionally, the person's initial speed was undeniable. Almost godly so. And so he had another savior - one who taking the group to an unknown location, somewhere, but still... Though he would testify that, undoubtedly, he was grateful - It was different from his emotions towards Urahara. Perhaps it was only in the fact that they were linked seperately and in memories of different intensity, but still...

The sound of the wind roaring lessened considerably in volume as the person began to slow to a walk, before -

_Thud_. He was thrown unceremoniously onto ground - entirely dry, it seemed, and caked in dirt. _Bam!_ The rest of the semi-Hollow Shinigami landed by him.

The person who had dropped them off stood once more before flitting off, leaving the group in agonizing silence once more.

oxoxoxo

"Thank you." Urahara's voice was feverently grateful. "Yourichi."

After not so much as five minutes, two similar thuds of bodies crashing to the floor had echoed across the apparently extensive cavern, as Shinji could make from it. The figure that had saved them was removing the bandages that covered her vistage - revealing her identity: Shinouin Yourichi, the Goddess of Speed.

"There's no need to thank me." Her voice, or so Shinji accurately assumed was her voice, called. "And I'll refrain from the moment from kicking you for not taking me with you last night."

Shinji blinked. They were friends? ...Was that where Urahara Kisuke had received his promotion to Captaincy... from Yourichi? It would explain the basis as for why they were being aided by the Captain of 2nd Division and the heir of the Shiouin clan...

"...I brought all eight of them here." Yourichi continued, indicating the fallen group that he was an unfortunate participant of, heaped on the ground. "Along with the new gigai that you were working on.... Now get on with it. With the best solution to the worst situation that you'd thought of since you first heard about this from Hirako."

"...So you know everything," Urahara's voice was pleasant, almost civil except for the undercurrent of sarcasm. "What an unpleasant person."

Her reply was curt, almost flippant in it's turn in irony. "You're one to talk."

"Tessai..." Urahara spoke again, addressing the Kido master, it seemed. "Please cast temporal suspension on Hirako and the others. And then create a 2-3 layer barrier around us... Within 20 hours, I'll create gigais for the two of us, as well as Hirako and the others, in order to quantine our spiritual powers."

"...What about Yourichi?"

"Don't worry about me. I'll escape somehow."

"We'll hide out on earth and take our time solving this." Urahara continued. "I swear... I'll find a way to reverse this 'hollowification.'"

...Why was it that he felt so disoriented... so lost... at the sound of that voice?

oxoxoxoxoxo The Present oxoxoxooxo

The air was saturated with patterns of fine dust, escaping only by the lone window in the lonely warehouse.

A blonde was within, sitting on a slab of stone, hair shaped in what oddly resembled a bowlcut, a cap twirled idly on lithe fingers.

He had regained all motor abilities, had learned, along with the others, to utillize his abilities as a Vaizard - one of the masked army, a grand name for the lonely group.

Remembering was the best way to see how things had turned to what they were - how emotions had twisted and hardened into iron over time, how events had frozen to stone after all these years...

Hiyori had always said that thinking of the past would kill off more brain cells than anything else, and he might as well preserve what he has, him especially, since he had so little cells to begin with. There was no arguing with her - She always kept her sandal, well-worn by now, in hand, in case of a retort.

Still... Even she couldn't keep the memories of the past at bay. He'd even seen her staring off into space sometimes, eyes glazed over with memories as well. Though she'd always hit him if he mentioned it, spluttering furiously that she had never done so, that he was imagining things, that he better shut up or she'd whack him with her sandal.

And Urahara. That eccentric, dysfunctional, maniacal, brilliant man. The man that visited occasionally - dropping off tidbits and notes, useful information for the group, and sometimes, visiting to simply offer his company.

The rest of the Vaizard knew better than to ask what that sharp gleam in Shinji's eyes, that sharpness in his steps, was - the one that appeared almost exclusively when Urahara visited. The gleam was always associated with that man. Even Hiyori knew better than to ask what that low slump in his shoulders was for, the one that seemed to break his figure whenever Urahara left.

They'd always associated it to the fact that Urahara had indeed saved them - that Shinji was merely paying tribute to the man, even after all this time.

Even they, his closest companions, were blissfully unaware of the emotions that seared inside - _Compassion, kindness... Love._

...So what crime was it that he was quietly attesting to his feelings, never declaring them outloud - guarding them with a jealousy that he'd never known existed within him?

It was better to go on with life in silence than with that heavy air of unrequittance... Wasn't it?

So it was. Even now, as his eyes locked with gray eyes, once almost silver - As he noticed him approach on one of his many visits, he brushed off the dirt on his jeans and felt a slow smile curl on his face as he stood up to greet the man once more.

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_"Brush the dirt off the clouds and open the doors of the sky. If not for anyone else, simply for me."_

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...I hope that this wasn't too difficult.

This might be a bit confusing, though....

Most of the story that I wrote is the Turn Back the Pendulum Arc, rewritten in Shinji's point of view, in the unanswerable question of 'What if Shinji had been conscious, after all, since the Hollowification, and was simple unable to do any motor activity?'

And so, this fic comes to life. The ending was placed in the present - Well... before the battles in Karakura Town, but close enough! D:

Well... I tried my best and I came out with what I did. If it was terrible or not... I'll leave that up to you reviewers. ;D

Please drop a review off and have a nice day~! :D


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